School gardening research events, Scarfe buliding Nov 13-30

From November 13 - 30, join Julia Ostertag in the Student Lounge of the Scarfe Building (Room #10, basement) to see and explore the themes of her PhD research project, Threads Sown, Grown & Given. On November 13 from 3-5pm, there will be a public opening of the indoor installation. Throughout November 13-30, you are invited to join Julia for daily threading conversations from 10-12, also in the student lounge. During these daily events, Julia will work with materials from the research, screen images from the summer garden installation, and invite the public (student teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, instructors, staff and the general public) to join the research process.

If you are interested in participating in the research, please contact Julia for a consent form (julia_ostertag@yahoo.ca) and bring it to the student lounge on the day you plan to attend an event.

Vielen Dank, Lena Schrieb, for the incredible poster! (http://www.lena-schrieb.de)


Julia Ostertag's PhD research project "Threads sown, grown & given" started in the spring of 2012 when she worked with the garden to grow an installation art-inspired depiction of a classroom: 24 students desks and one teacher's desk were carefully plotted in a rigid grid into the soil of the UBC Orchard Garden. The desks were sown with flax seeds, our oldest known agricultural plant and the plant that makes linen fibres. Walls were erected by using cedar frames and filled by growing regularly spaced pole bean plants. And, finally, windows were hung that juxtaposed the verdant growth of the garden with black and white images of historical school gardening in such difficult contexts as Nazi Germany and North American residential schooling. This outdoor classroom became the site of a research event with a class of student teachers, who engaged with the installation to explore the relationships between land and teaching through the lens of "becoming teachers together." Now entering the fall/winter phase of the installation and the research cycle, Julia has brought the materials and initial reflections from the summer indoors into the windowless belly of the teacher education building. Here she will host "threading conversations," daily events every morning from 10-12, as well as another larger workshop with student teachers, to create both material and discursive threads from the flax fibres and collaborative conversations. In the spring, the linen thread will be returned to the garden as a gift, formally ending the research while creating openings for new relationships and understandings to continue emerging.

To see past posts of the research installation click the "Installation" label or simply visit: http://www.theorchardgarden.blogspot.ca/search/label/Installation